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The Pilgrim and 
The Cavalier 



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By EDMUND G. ROSS 



(PIONEER 
SOLDIER 
SENATOR* 



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The Pilgrim and tine Cavalier 



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HERE has been no lack of heroic incident in the 
history of America. Since the landing of the 
Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, there has been a 
continuing illustration in varying forms, of the 
^0 ^^^^!^ same daring spirit of endeavor and of conquest, 
t; that led the Pilgrims to embark in their frail 

craft upon an unknown sea in search of homes in an equally 
unknown land. The bold spirit of adventure and of con- 
quest then illustrated has since blazed its way to achieve- 
ments in war, in polities, in religion, in literature, in the 
sciences, and in all the social activities and economies, till 
the world has been metamorphosed. It is not the world it 
was three hundred, two hundred, or even one hundred years 
ago ; nor is man the same being he was. From the debased 
and cringing servitor he was three centuries ago, he has 
taken on a thinking, active, self-assertive personality, till 
the fame of the masterful spirit of the Pilgrim, as developed 
in the New World, has reflected back upon the old his own 
spirit of achievement and domination in human affairs, 
with a light and force that has everywhere kindled aspira- 
tions for a better and higher life. 

The broad expanse of the continent was to him a revela- 
tion. It opened up to him new and wonderful possibilities 
and whetted the spirit of conquest. His early triumphs 
over his immediate surroundings seemed but to add to his 
determination to conquer all before him, and the odds were 
never counted in the attack. Only the result of successful 
achievement was kept in view. No privation was too great ; 
no task too arduous; no danger too threatening to turn 
him aside from a once settled purpose. In every age of 
our history the conquering spirit of the Pilgrim has cropped 
out as a distinctive, inordinate, all-conquering characteris- 
tic. A bom fighter and instinctively a State builder, he 
came primarily to destroy and rebuild upon a greater and 
grander scale — though it may be said that he scarcely 
knew why. It was instinct. 

Opportunities and conditions developed mental and 
physical aspirations which forced aggressive activity. 
Early in their day the Pilgrims developed a race of con- 
querors, publicists and statesmen. As the aborigines were 



forced back, decimated and destroyed, the forum, the school 
house, the church and the State — all the characteristics and 
adjuncts of civilization — were established. It is this stock 
that subdued the West as its progenitors had the East. In 
its march to the Mississippi River, it fought its way through 
and over savage Indian tribes and the not less wild and 
dangerous four footed denizens of the forest. Beyond that 
its march was unimpeded — till, seemingly for the absence 
of opposition, the movement for a time appeared to halt. 
But it was only for a time. An occasion for the resumption 
of its westward march was not long delayed. The com- 
pact that had restricted the dominion of slavery at the 
door of the great plains, had been annulled. The Cavalier, 
who had settled and ruled the South had looked upon the 
smiling plains, the rippling streams and wooded dells of 
the southwest, and essayed to plant there new outposts for 
the strengthening of his favorite institution of slavery, 
as a buttress to his waning domination in American politics. 
Some thirty years before, he had consented to a compromise 
line which should forever mark the western limit of Ameri- 
can slavery. But the necessity of growth and development 
had made the abrogation of that compact imperative to the 
safety of his property in men. And so that line had been 
wiped off the map at his command. 

The long rest from conflict had apparently invigorated 
the Pilgrim with renewed and wonderful vitality, and the 
two opposing elements of American civilization met on the 
plains of Kansas. There was internecine war. There was 
turmoil and bloodshed. For the first time in history, Ameri- 
cans met in hostile attitude on the streets, on the high- 
ways and on armed fields in serried ranks — as enemies. 
It was the beginning of a struggle which was to settle the 
most gigantic question of public policy that had ever con- 
fronted any people — whether freedom or slavery should 
dominate and characterize the civilization of the new 
world. It was early demonstrated that the struggle was to 
be fought out to the finish — that the day of compromise was 
ended, that in the nature of things there could be no farther 
peace-patching — that the country must be all free or all 
slave, and that that end was to be reached only through 
the arbitrament of the sword, the last recourse for the 
settlement of public disputes. 

The Pilgrim triumphed, as usual. The conflict was replete 
with grandest illustrations of race and personal heroism. 



' -etc /Sv^v 



The slow coursing iron blood of the Pilgrims was an 
over-match for the impetuous, hot blood of the Cavalier, 
and slavery went down forever, as the verdict of the giant 
struggle, written in letters of living light that spanned 
the continent — that a slave should no more forever tread 
the soil of America. That was the outcome and the verdict 
of the Kansas struggle, signed and sealed at Appomattox 
a few years later. It was upon her soil that the great con- 
flict commenced. It was there that occurred the first 
martyrdom to the cause of universal freedom. It was 
there that the first blow was strudk that sounded the death 
knell of American slavery, and in its death the consecration 
of the American continent to human freedom. From 
1854 to 1865 Kansas was a vast camping ground, over 
which her people were constantly on guard. It was at once 
the outpost of civilization in the Southwest and Freedom's 
bulwark against the farther westward extension of human 
slavery. No day was too hot or too cold — no night too dark 
or too long, and no sacrifice too great, for the constant 
vigil of her people against the encroachment of the slave 
power on the East and the savage Indian on the West. 
For eleven years they were literally on the watch-tower 
of liberty. There were not more than one hundred 
thousand people in the State at the opening of the war, 
yet the record of her enlistments from the opening to the 
close, numbered not less than fifteen thousand, ranging 
from the smooth-faced youth of sixteen to the grizzled 
veteran of sixty, and the geographical scope of their ser- 
vice covered every southwestern state and territory. 

The State motto — "To the Stars through tribulation" 
— fittingly expresses the amibition and the record of the 
early settlers of Kansas. It was a record of devotion to 
a lofty idea and typical of American aspiration and cour- 
age. That idea was liberty bottomed on law — the courage 
was that of the Pilgrim when he set sail in his shallop to 
thread the trackless ocean in search of a home for free- 
men. Those early settlers of Kansas had set out in their 
emigrant wagons with their families, and on horseback 
and on foot, to build new homes in the then far West, and 
to erect a new Commonwealth dedicated to Freedom — 
primarily to build a living wall beyond which American 
slavery should never pass. Like their prototypes, they 
were State builders. With them, also, it was instinct. It 
was in their Pilgrim blood. The swaddling clothes of 



territoryism ill-fitted them, and scarcely were they well 
out of their emigrant wagons and their traveling and camp • 
ing outfits, till a movement was put afoot for a convention 
and a State government. Holding conventions and formu- 
lating resolutions is an American habit, and a useful one. 
It directs the mind and habits of thought into practical 
channels. It affords a safe and pleasant, if not always 
beneficial outlet for thought and for effort that might other- 
wise be directed to less innocent purposes. It is a public 
safety-valve — especially in times of public turmoil, when 
there is need of making haste slowly. 

Meantime, those who had been instrumental in abrogat- 
ing the eastern boundry of Kansas as the western limit of 
slavery, had also been active, and the western counties of 
Missouri had early poured over the border a force that 
for a time quite equalled that from the northeast. They 
also held conventions, adopted resolutions, and were active 
in formulating a system of State government for the new 
candidate for local sovereignty. Newspapers were estab- 
lished in the interest of the rival contestants for possession 
of the disputed country. Public meetings were held by 
each of the factions, and for a time there was turmoil in 
that land. Blood was shed and rapine run riot. On the 
part of the emigrants from the North, these conditions 
were aggravated by the coming on of winter. From a 
thousand to two thousand miles from their base of sup- 
plies, with insufficient housing for women and children, 
they were faced by elemental conditions to meet which they 
were but imperfectly equipped; while their adversaries 
had easy access across the border to their homes and all 
the comforts of living to which they were accustomed ; and 
could come and go at will. The first winter of this period 
was one of serious discomfort to all, and of great suffering 
to many of these emigrants; and iheir second winter was 
little better. Many a family which had been accustomed 
to the comforts of Eastern homes, of society, of schools 
and of churches, passed those winters in rude log cabins 
and stone huts, in shacks, in slab shanties, and even in im- 
provised caves, and lived on food which in better days they 
would scarcely have thrown to their dogs. But there was 
little complaining. They had been cast in a heroic mould, 
and were there for a heroic purpose. They were equal to 
the occasion, and each returning spring found them ready 
and alert for the fray, in whatever form it might come. 



To add to the gravity of these untoward conditions, 
though the second year found the Free State people in an 
unquestionable and increasing majority, the Federal Gov- 
ernment affected to treat them as outlaws. The authorities 
at Washington were in league with the minority in Kansas 
which was becoming less and less month by month, and 
the Army of the United States, carrying the flag of equal 
rights to all, was put to the ignoble use of arresting and 
imprisoning American citizens, guilty of no offence but the 
exercise of the unquestioned rights of American citizen- 
ship — the right of free speech and the right of self-defence. 

During the years of 1854 to '56, the flag of the Ameri- 
can Republic was draggled in the mire of faction and the 
American escutcheon was smirched with a partisan crime. 
It became, so far as the Federal officials of that time could 
make it, a symbol of oppression, of wrong and of fraud, and 
under its protecting folds were perpetrated crimes upon 
liberty, crimes upon humanity, for which nothing short of 
total extirpation, root and branch, of the hideous monster, 
American Slavery, in whose behalf and at whose instance 
those crimes were committed, could atone. 

The third year of the territory, 1856, practically set- 
tled its status on the side of freedom. But one incursion 
of armed non-residents occurred, and though in very con- 
siderable numbers, they were met in force before they could 
penetrate into the country, and turned back. From that 
time on, the policy of the General Government began to 
change. The Free State settlers had so accumulated in 
numbers and equipment that it had become manifest that 
farther effort to force slavery upon Kansas would be futile. 
Wiser counsels had begun to prevail at Washington. The 
fact had come to be recognized in controlling official 
circles that Kansas must become a free state, that the west- 
ward march of slavery had been stayed, and that the ill- 
advised abrogation of the Missouri Compromise line was 
a mistake of that character that partaQtes largely of the 
nature of a public crime. 

With the return of continued peace, public attention 
again became engrossed in legitimate state making. The 
Federal Administration still seemed intent on making 
Kansas a slave state, or at the worst an innocuous free 
state. The Federal officials of the territory quite uniformly 
discharged their functions with the appearance of having 
received instructions to that end. So the controversy was 



transferred from the field to the forum. It had become a 
game of politics, with Washington City as the center of 
direction, and the trials of the Free State men were not 
yet ended, though the worst was over, and they had 
obtained a vantage ground that relieved them of much of 
the turmoil and anxiety of the first three years of their set- 
tlement. The struggle had become one of finesse — of brains 
instead of rifles, and of physical endurance. Three several 
conventions had been held for the purpose of formulating 
constitutions for the new State, at Topeka, in 1856, and 
at Lecompton and Leavenworth in 1857. The first and 
third were composed of Free State men and their proposed 
constitutions were shaped accordingly. The Lecompton 
Convention was composed of pro-slavery men, and their 
action was in the interest of slavery, though there was in it 
a seductive clause purporting to submit the question of 
slavery to a popular vote. But it was mis-leading — as, if 
adopted, slavery, already established, would have continued 
to exist. So that instrument, also, came to naught, though, 
as an inducement to its acceptance, it proposed grants of 
vast areas of the public domain to the new state for various 
public purposes and for the endowment of public institu- 
tions. It was an alluring bait, but the Free State people, 
now in a large majority, did not even seriously consider 
the proposition. Under the operation of that proposed con- 
stitution, Kansas would have been, so far as that instru- 
ment could effect it, simply an "innocuous" free state. 

In the election of 1858 for members of the Territorial 
Legislature the Free State people easily obtained control, 
and another constitutional convention was ordered. That 
convention assembled at Wyandotte in the summer of 1859. 
The constitution framed by it was adopted in the succeeding 
fall election by an almost unanimous vote, but was not 
accepted by Congress until January 21st, 1861. That ended 
all forms of slavery agitation in Kansas. Indeed, it had for 
some years previously ceased to be a question even of dis- 
cussion among the people in the Territory. For two years 
previous to admission, the pro-slavery party in Congress 
had stood solidly against the admission of Kansas as a 
free state, and her admission was finally brought about only 
by the previous retirement of the Senatorial delegations 
from the states of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, the 
admission bill having previously passed the House. 

It was, of course, foreseen by the Senators and Con- 
gressmen from the South that the eventual admission of 



Kansas was a certainty, and that her admission would 
permanently install a free state or anti-slavery majority in 
both houses of Congress — that there was no practical utility 
in further resistance, and that it was wise to bring matters 
to a crisis at once, the more effectually to hamper the 
Government in any measures that might be resorted to 
for the prevention of that general disintegration which 
they vainly hoped would follow their retirement. 

It had, of course, been understood by all, but by none 
more clearly than the slaveholders themselves, that the 
possession of Kansas was vital to the existence of slavery. 
That institution was "eating itself out" in the then slave 
states. It must have room for expansion, or die of suffoca- 
tion or insurrection. The slaves were rapidly increasing 
in numbers, and in large sections of the South they already 
outnumbered the whites. The situation was becoming 
perilous to their owners. The breaking down of the old 
compromise barrier to the western progress of slavery was 
logical, and of the most urgent necessity to afford room 
for expansion and thus avoid congestion and not impossible 
insurrection and anarchy. From the slaveholder's point 
of view there was political and economic necessity for the 
possession of not only Kansas, but the entire Southwest — 
the Indian Territory, New Mexico and Ajizona. The 
critical need of the time, to the South, was room for that 
increase, and it was imperative. But the loss of Kansas 
settled the question, and there was no recourse for the 
South but secession, if they would preserve slavery — ap- 
parently in the expectation that their withdrawal would 
disrupt and remove all obstructions to the extension of 
slavery in any desired or practical direction. That was 
the logic of the situation, and the slave owner was quick 
to see it — furthermore, that in the nature of things the 
Union must be all free or all slave. So, to test the proposi- 
tion, in the possibility of making it all slave, or as nearly 
so as would be sufficient for their purpose, they withdrew, 
or attempted to withdraw. That they would be compelled 
to remain, was not, in their calculation, even a remote possi- 
bility. But in the slaveholder's mad assumption of 
superiority of right and his lofty contempt for all who as- 
sumed to champion the common rights of humanity, even 
in the slave, he sowed the wind, and therefore reapt the 
whirlwind, and Kansas was the land where the tornado 
gathered and from which it started for the performance 
of its divine mission. 

So it fell out that Kansas became the entering wedge 
that was to split the Union or destroy slavery — and it would 
be uncandid to deny that for a time it was a question which 
it should be, for there were dark days during the war, 
under the cloud of possible foreign intervention, which 
moved to misgiving the hearts of the strongest. 



The struggle in Kansas was, therefore, in the highest 
possible sense a question of politics. On its solution hung 
the gravest and grandest problem that ever confronted 
the philosopher, the humanitarian or the statesman — 
whether the great Republic should thenceforth be the home 
and citadel of freedom or the Icennel of the slave. It was 
on the plains of Kansas that this most masterful of all the 
issues that ever arose to vex the politics of the world was 
fought to a finish, and freedom triumphed. 

It seems not too much to claim for the earlier settlers 
of Kansas that they were at least a potent factor in the 
destruction of slavery in the United States, and thus the 
salvation of the Union. From first to last of the great 
struggle that was to determine that momentous issue, 
covering a period of eleven years, from 1854 to 1856, their 
days and nights, their lives and fortunes, were freely laid 
upon the altar of their country in this grandest of all the 
grand occasions that history records for the advancement 
of man, and the betterment of human conditions. Kansas 
was the Thermopylae of the struggle, and her citizens stood 
at Thermopylae throughout the long night of that struggle. 
They passed through many dark hours while the strife 
was on. At times hungry and naked — at all times the 
enemy at their door, the sword of Federal authority held 
threateningly over their heads, and their chief men and 
counsellors imprisoned and held as criminals under guard 
of Federal troops for no crime — the record of courage and 
constancy then and thus made, was never surpassed in 
human history, and the end of it all was a fitting finale — a 
nation all free. At the end of the century of which the 
history of Kansas will stand out in illumination, the United 
States will exhibit a grand front of a hundred million free- 
men — not a slave — and all in a considerable sense the work 
of Kansas. The discomforts of her earlier pioneers, brought 
thither by the pressure of the greatest issue of the age — 
their sufferings from cold and hunger, equalled only by the 
record of Valley Forge — from daily and nightly patrol 
against armed bands from across a hostile border, from 
open murder and secret assassination, and from the con- 
stant disturbance and not infrequent total suspension of 
economic pursuits, and continuing for years, all combine 
to present an unbroken record of heroic endurance, self- 
sacrifice and constancy to a grand idea, that no previous 
era of the world history has surpassed, and rarely equalled. 
The blood of the Pilgrim blossomed out in Kansas, and the 
fruition was the death of slavery in America. 

EDMUND G. ROSS, 

Ex-United States Senator from Kansas. 

Albuquerque, New Mexico 
1895. 



Haywnrth Pub. House, Waali 1> C 



S86 
























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